Gadgetory

everything about a DeLorean interests me the stainless steel cause it's so unique the Goldwing doors even you know the the rear engine layout it's a true Grand Touring sports car I was a teenager when the car first came out in 1981 and it was just completely different from anything else on the roads here in America and it just caught my attention this is the job that I wanted when I was 16 years old you know had the original company carried on I'd probably be sweeping floors in a factory someplace but just by happy accident I happen to be here and it's it's fun to be involved so intimately supporting the legacy that is John DeLorean the car that bears his name I originally did my apprenticeship when I was in Liverpool and I grew up there and then came to the states in 1980 I opened up a shop of my own in Los Angeles fixing English French cars Buju Renault ng trials by 82 I had DeLorean owners coming to me asking me if I if I would look at their DeLoreans and then as the years went on it seemed like it was the best way to go for business so I just basically decided to concentrate on DeLorean we opened up a facility in Houston which originally we decided that it was going to be more like a Central Depot to ship parts to owners to make it more convenient and quicker shipping time and when we opened in 87 we invited what we knew from the mailing lists of local owners and and we had about 50 cars show up and maybe a hundred people show up and and at the end of the day 30 cars stayed and since then I've never been less than 30 cars in my possession here in Houston in 1982 when the factory closed they were still left with about 17 1,800 unsold cars and a factory full full of parts to build more there was a company called consolidated International which acquired all the unsold cars and all the parts they were not car enthusiasts it was just a business deal fast-forward to 1997 Stephen was able to acquire all of that inventory of parts that remained which was still enough to fill this 40,000 square-foot building here full of literally millions of brand-new DeLorean parts from the factory nuts bolts washers glass stainless wheels are still available as new old stock parts from the factory here we are with this big warehouse and and I'm used to a poem about the size of this jam-packed with all these Spurs no computer system no staff and that's when the fun began of course our primary business here in Texas is the sales service and restoration of DeLorean cars at any given time we've got between 35 and 45 cars here for service or restoration literally from all over the world we own all the remaining stock of parts that came out of the factory in Belfast and that comprises most of our inventory so we do part sales to shops and owners all around the world as well as we put the facility together and then we started doing tours and people would come in and people would say man you've got enough stuff here to make cars like yep and then it sort of evolved to why don't you make cars well we will and that's sort of where we're at right now well there's about 2800 parts that make up a DeLorean we have about 90 9.2 99.3% parts availability now with that point seven point eight percent it's it's things that can typically be fairly easily either reproduced or can be acquired as a rebuilt or in some cases a use part if it has to be by filling the holes in the inventory so to speak there's about a thousand doors here in the building and the door of course being the most complicated part of the car to reproduce they're almost evenly matched in pairs left and right so about five hundred cars would be the maximum when we bought all the inventory we did get all of the technical specification all of the drawings so over the years as as things have run out we've reproduced them from those drawings with CAD cam and with scanning and with 3d modeling and stuff like that things that were just so impossible just a handful of years ago seem to get better and better all the time most everyone who comes in knows the DeLorean from the Back to the Future series of movies I think DeLorean had just as much of a starring role as Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd you can't go to a gas station you can't stop in a parking lot without somebody asking where's the flux capacitor what happens when you get to 88 miles an hour B and yo guys hey Marty is you're driving down the road so it happens all the time and it's it it's one of the things that we just have to embrace I I fully believe that if if it weren't for the movies this car would be no more remembered than a Bricklin which was another Goldwing car that was made in very small numbers outside the United States and sold in the US obviously it's phenomenal for us for the brand we have all this remarketing that's going on 24/7 around the globe you watch Back to the Future you see a DeLorean you go to the Internet and you find out that hey DeLoreans are out there we have had people that have come in here that have been kids that have come in in between their dad's legs saying I wanted to Lorient and they've grown up and come and bought one we've seen it happen so many times everybody's got a DeLorean story and that's what's cool to hear that the car made such an impact on people you know not just 30 years ago but even still today having been out of production for 32 years that people still recognize it and like it